BUILT AMERICA MAGAZINE
"None of these product innovations mattered when the vehicles wouldn't start,"
Some of the costliest failures in fleet operations are also the quietest.
If a crew forgets to plug an ambulance into shore power after a shift, those parasitic loads can drain a weak battery within hours. To counter this, services would leave their engines running between shifts. They avoided dead batteries, but at the cost of significant fuel burn, engine wear and hours of unnecessary idling. Schroeder had seen roof-mounted solar solve the problem, keeping batteries charged whether anyone remembered the cord or not. What he didn't like was the hardware. The panels typically used were rigid, fragile and slow to install, and they created sourcing and handling headaches on a production line. Schroeder wanted something more flexible, more durable and far easier to build into vehicles at scale. WHEN A DEAD BATTERY THREATENS A MISSED CALL
An ambulance sits exactly where the last crew parked it. The next crew climbs in, a call is already waiting, and the engine won't turn over. Tim Schroeder, President & CEO of ChargeSys Solar, knows that scenario well. As a licensed professional engineer with 39 U.S. patents , Schroeder has spent decades developing products for emergency response, including the first electro-hydraulic powered stretcher and the Ferno iN/TRAXX modular ambulance interior system. Over that time, ambulances became rolling electronics platforms, packed with radios, telematics and onboard systems that draw power even when the engine is off.
"None of these product innovations mattered when the vehicles wouldn't start," he says.
ARMORCELL AMBULANCE APPLICATION
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